Nigella Lawson swoons over a collection of recipes that’s been her standby for 20 years. Plus six essential dishes from the book, including roast lamb with anchovy, saffron mash and passion fruit bavarois

I wish I could say I bought Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories when it came out in 1996 for the title alone, but the truth is I’d eaten enough of his food to know I’d want any book he’d written. Nevertheless, it is, beyond doubt, the best title of a cookery book ever. I sometimes think (pace vegetarians) the one thing that links those who really love food is that when asked what their favourite thing to eat is they will invariably say roast chicken. But that’s not even it: what Simon Hopkinson understands, and every line of his book relays, is that a recipe, while it must be utterly reliable, is more than a mere formula. What breathes life into it is the story it tells. I’m actually not talking just about anecdote, though Roast Chicken and Other Stories is deliciously rich on this front, but about voice.

I’ve been rereading Roast Chicken a lot over the past weeks – an intensely comforting and enlivening experience – and my old copy is plastered with fresh Post-It notes. Suddenly, I feel I must make deep-fried calves’ brains with sauce gribiche, milk chocolate malt ice cream, onion tart, pickled endives, crisp parmesan biscuits (“delicious served with beef consommé or as an accompaniment to a very good dry martini”), potato purée with parsley. I could go on: there’s not a recipe here I don’t want to eat immediately.

There’s not a recipe here I don’t want to eat immediately

I’m also reminded of how much I learned from Simon Hopkinson in those early days: how to cook rhubarb (roast it), how to make creme brulee (put the dish in the freezer first) and that adding potato flour makes the batter for fried fish exquisitely crisp. But then, Simon Hopkinson is a born teacher, in the manner of those maverick and inspiring characters who bring subjects to life, and who crop up emblematically in novels and memoirs. He is also a classically trained chef with the heart of a home cook. This is a book that’s predicated on the comfort of the kitchen and the belief that one should cook what one wants to eat and, above all, to please and never to impress. “The food should not dominate the proceedings. Rather, it should enhance and enliven the occasion. There is nothing more tedious than an evening spent discussing every dish eaten in minute detail. ‘Oh Daphne, how did you manage to insert those carrots in your hollowed-out courgettes?’” Rather like Alan Bennett, Simon Hopkinson combines nostalgic cosiness – “My mother makes really good potato cakes. They are at their best eaten on a Sunday afternoon, melting in front of the fire in their pool of butter. It should be winter, about 5pm, dark outside and a Marx Brothers film has just finished on the television” – with a glorious crustiness. On olive oil: “Wherever you go, it seems that someone wants to dribble a bit of that golden green liquid over your food. It’s just not on.” It’s not the oil that Hopkinson is attacking here, though (he has a wonderful recipe for mashed potato made with olive oil rather than butter), but the thoughtlessness of those who follow fashion without regard to the food in front of them.

Although a certain elegant curmudgeonliness is the Hopkinson stamp, so much of his impatience is lament rather than attack. “We shouldn’t really eat tomatoes as much as we do in Britain. It’s silly,” he writes. “I just wish sometimes that we could be more aware of what is good when it is good, rather than eating things or buying ingredients purely out of habit and ignorance.”

But for all his gentle rants, his most notable characteristic is a generous enthusiasm: the book is studded with “fanfares” to chefs and cooks he admires and who have inspired him, and he is a meticulous curator-collector of other people’s recipes. Indeed, his word about another classic, Edouard de Pomiane’s Cooking in Ten Minutes, offers the crispest commentary on Roast Chicken and Other Stories: “Full of humour and acute perception about cooking simple things without fuss.”

Crab tart

Crab tart. Photograph: Romas Foord/The Observer

The combination of tomato, garlic and saffron with any shellfish is a good one. When set into a rich egg custard tart, it is truly sublime. Crab works extremely well here, though any other sort of shellfish, or a mixture, can be most successful.

To make the pastry, add the butter to the flour and rub in. Add the egg yolk, the salt and enough water to form a firm dough. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC/gas mark 4. Roll out the pastry as thinly as possible and use to line a 20.5cm/8-inch tart or flan tin. Prick the bottom with a fork and blind bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until pale golden brown and cooked through.

Put the tomatoes, garlic, herbs and seasoning in a saucepan and reduce to a thickish sauce. Cool, remove the herbs and spread the sauce in the bottom of the pastry case. Warm together 3 tbsp of the cream with the saffron and allow to steep for a few minutes. Beat together the egg yolks and the rest of the cream and add the saffron cream. Season. Loosely fold the crab into the custard and carefully pour into the tart case. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until set and pale golden brown. Serve warm, rather than hot from the oven.

Scallops sauté Provençal

Scallops sauté Provençal. Photograph: Romas Foord/The Observer

The recipe for this is so simple that it almost doesn’t need recording. The word ‘Provençal’, in everybody’s language, usually means tomatoes, garlic and olive oil; in this recipe it is just that. The definitive version, I first ate at Chez L’Ami Louis.

If the tomatoes are large, slice them in half horizontally. Season and grill or bake with a little of the oil until on the point of collapse and a little blistered. I think that if you are going to cook a tomato, then cook it through – there’s nothing worse than a hot, raw tomato. Meanwhile, heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan with a little more of the oil until almost smoking. Season the scallops and fry until really crusty and browned. The secret is to give them longer than you think before turning them. When cooked – which should only take a matter of minutes – remove from the pan and keep warm with the tomatoes, which should be cooked by now. Add the butter to the pan and heat until foaming. Throw in the garlic, sizzle well and add the parsley. Spoon over the scallops and tomatoes and serve with the lemon wedges.

Preheat the oven to 425ºF/220ºC/gas mark 7. With a small sharp knife, make about 12 incisions 5cm/2 inches deep in the fleshy side of the joint. Insert a piece of garlic, half an anchovy and a small sprig of rosemary into each incision. Push all of them right in with your little finger. Cream the butter with any remaining anchovies and smear it all over the surface of the meat. Grind over plenty of black pepper. Place the lamb in a roasting tin and pour the wine around. Tuck in any leftover sprigs of rosemary and pour over the lemon juice. Put in the oven and roast for 15 minutes.

Turn the oven temperature down to 350ºF/180ºC/gas mark 4 and roast the lamb for a further hour, or slightly more, depending on how well done you like your meat. Baste from time to time with the winy juices. Take the meat out of the oven and leave to rest in a warm place for at least 15 minutes before carving.

Meanwhile, taste the juices and see if any salt is necessary – it shouldn’t be because of the anchovies. During the roasting process the wine should have reduced somewhat, and mingled with the meat juices and anchovy butter to make a delicious gravy. If you find it too thin, then a quick bubble on the hob should improve the consistency.

When it comes to good food smells, this is one of the best, because as you slice the lamb the waft of garlic, rosemary and anchovy hits you head on. Mashed potato is good with this.

Saffron mash

Saffron mash. Photograph: Romas Foord/The Observer

If you are going to serve these potatoes with fish, then it is nice to cook them in fish stock. If you are not, then don’t bother.

Boil the potatoes in fish stock or water with some salt. Heat together the saffron, garlic and milk, cover and infuse while the potatoes are boiling. Add the olive oil to the milk infusion and gently reheat. Drain and mash the potatoes – I think the best texture achieved is through a mouli-légumes. Put the potatoes in the bowl of an electric mixer, switch on and add the saffron mixture in a steady stream. Add Tabasco to taste and adjust the seasoning. Allow the purée to sit in a warm place for about 30 minutes so that the saffron flavour is fully developed.

Warm hake with thinned mayonnaise and capers

In Italy I was once served a dish of warm fillets of sea bass, lightly cooked and dressed with mayonnaise and some little flageolet beans. It was delicious. Made with hake, it can be just as good, certainly less expensive.

Put all the ingredients for the court-bouillon into a large pan, preferably stainless steel or enamel. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Slip in the hake, bring back the boil, switch off the heat, cover and leave for 20-30 minutes. The fish should easily be cooked through after this time, but a few minutes longer left in this liquid is not going to spoil the fish. Keep warm.

To make the mayonnaise, whisk together the egg yolks, mustard, salt, Tabasco and vinegar. Pour in the groundnut oil in the thinnest stream possible, then follow it with the olive oil, beating all the while until thick. Add the tarragon and set aside.

Mix the garlic, beans, tomatoes, vinegar and olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and warm through gently until hot but not boiling. Pour into a warmed deep dish. Remove the skin from the hake, lift off the fillets and lay them neatly over the beans. Thin the mayonnaise with a little of the court-bouillon to give it a coating consistency. Spoon over the fish and sprinkle with the capers and a few tarragon leaves. Dust with a little cayenne, if you wish.

Heat together the milk and vanilla pod. Whisk thoroughly as it comes to the boil to disperse the black seeds, then remove from the heat, cover and leave to infuse for 30 minutes.

Put the gelatine leaves in a bowl, cover with cold water and leave to soften. Beat together the egg yolks and caster sugar. Strain the flavoured milk into this mixture, and put back on a gentle heat stirring constantly until the sauce has the consistency of thin cream. Whisk thoroughly at this point to homogenise, then strain through a fine sieve into a cool bowl.

Put the softened gelatine in a small pan with 2 tbsp water and heat gently until melted. Add to the warm custard and mix thoroughly. When the custard is cold, stir in the passion fruit purée, and either place the bowl over ice or put it in the fridge. Lightly whip the double cream with the icing sugar. When the custard has started to set, fold in the lightly whipped cream and quickly pour it into either one large soufflé dish or four individual ramekins.

There are two ways in which to do this final process: if you have put the custard in the fridge it will set to a solid lump. This then needs to be broken down into manageable liquidity either in a blender or food processor, before folding in the cream. If you use the bowl over ice method, then, from time to time, as the custard cools, draw a wooden spoon through the mixture until it has a jelly-like consistency, at which point you can fold in the cream. Either method is equally good, it just depends upon how much time you have. The end result, however, must be a thickish mixture that is still runny enough for the cream to be folded in.

Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson with Lindsey Bareham (Ebury, £16.99). To order a copy for £14.44, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846